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and Mrs. Royal’s beautiful rex begonia lies in ruins on the floor, amid a heap of earth and broken pottery.)

Miss Royal, unsympathetically: “Poor Aunt Angela! Her heart will be broken.”

Emily: “But that doesn’t matter, does it?”

Miss Royal, gently: “Oh, no; not at all.”

Emily, consulting note-book: “Do you find many changes in Shrewsbury?”

Miss Royal: “‘I find a good many changes in the people. The younger generation does not impress me favourably.”

(Emily writes this down. Chu-Chin again reappears, evidently having chased the cat thorugh a fresh mud puddle, and resumes his repast of the tidy, under the piano.)

Emily shut her note-book and rose. Not for any number of Mr. Towers would she prolong this interview. She looked like a young angel, but she was thinking terrible things. And she hated Miss Royal—oh, how she hated her!

“Thank you, that will be all,” she said, with a haughtiness quite equal to Miss Royal’s. “I’m sorry to have taken so much of your time. Good-afternoon.”

She bowed slightly and went out to the hall. Miss Royal followed her to the parlour door.

“Hadn’t you better take your dog, Miss Starr?” she asked sweetly.

Emily paused in the act of shutting the outer door and looked at Miss Royal.

“Pardon me.”

“I said, hadn’t you better take your dog?”

“My dog?”

“Yes. He hasn’t quite finished the tidy, to be sure, but you might take it long. It won’t be much good to Aunt Angela now.”

“He—he—isn’t my dog,” gasped Emily.

“Not your dog? Whose dog is he then?” said Miss Royal.

“I—I thought he was yours—your chow,” said Emily.